


it comes down to reality

by stilesinwonderland (itsabravenewworld)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, New York City, Tour Bus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2598974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsabravenewworld/pseuds/stilesinwonderland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“My name is Stiles, I’ll be your tour guide throughout the big city today. And before you ask, that’s a nickname. I chose it myself when I was a kid. My real name is such an inconvenience on you poor tourists, I figured I’d give you a break.” He gives a bright smile and leans over with one arm draping over the edge of the bus railing. This provides them with a clear view of Stiles’s neck, tightened back and his smile is so wide, eyes crinkled.</i>
</p><p>Or the one where Stiles is a NYC tour bus guide</p>
            </blockquote>





	it comes down to reality

**Author's Note:**

> this was one of my favorites to write, because I got to include some things I experienced in my trip to NYC earlier this year. I have a tentative plan to make this into a series where Stiles and Derek meet each other in different ways in the city of New York, because a city that big provides a ton of potential for that, right? 
> 
> So let me know what you thought, and if I should continue this, or anything else!

Cora wants to see the sights when she visits him and Laura in New York. She’s staying for all of Christmas break, and hadn’t been able to resist when a bus driver with enormous puppy dog eyes had approached them and inquired about whether they would like to take part in a tour around the city during the night tours.

 

Anyways, that’s how Derek finds himself on a double-decker bus, three minutes from departing and trying to cajole his way out of this. There’s even fucking snow  _everywhere_ , soaking his hair and Cora is smiling next to him like it’s the best day of her life. They’re alone in their row, on the top of the bus where they can feel the crisp winter wind brushing against their faces, because Cora had wanted decent pictures and she loves the open air. There are a few young couples there and one elderly pair, silently sitting together, holding each other’s hands with small smiles.

“I promise I can show you everything you can see here,” Derek insists, drawing his eyes away from the _tourists,_  his eyebrows drawn down as Cora snaps a picture of him.

Derek’s always hated tourists. They never bother to look up where they’re going when they venture into the city and Derek (because even though he hates them, he’s not heartless) needs to direct them twenty blocks away while the strangers complain about how the map had said their destination was _right here._

Cora sighs sullenly from her place, sitting cross legged and pulling her phone out. “No. You showing me things will be too personal, you’ll tell me about memories I don’t care about. I want to be a tourist.”

“But  _I’m_ not a tourist.”

“So what?” Cora lifts an eyebrow and snaps a picture of the sun setting over the buildings in the distance, pursing her lips. “Have you even seen the Empire State Building?”

Derek pauses, because he actually hasn’t, even though he’s lived in New York since he was a teenager. “It wasn’t on my list of priorities.”

Cora sniffs haughtily. She adjusts her scarf on her neck and glares at Derek. “You’ve lived here for nearly eight years. Now it  _is_ on your list of priorities. And after we take this three hour bus tour through the city, you can take me to dinner.”

“Laura can do that.” Laura had just managed to dodge out of taking the tour itself due to her work hours. Derek doesn’t have that luxury.

“Laura isn’t my favorite sibling though,” Cora leans onto his shoulder and gives him a sideways smile.

Derek can’t keep his lips from twitching up in response, because he actually has missed her, nagging and all. “You’re full of shit—”

The sound of stomping up the stairs catches Derek’s (and everyone else’s) attention, cutting him off. Derek catches sight of a neon green baseball cap that reads “Tour Guide” across the front and then a man jumps up onto their platform in a flourish of flailing limbs.

_Then._

Their guide yells out, “Hello friends!” And Derek can’t stop staring.

The guy has a delicate blush dusted across his cheeks and nose from the winter air. His baseball cap covers chestnut brown hair and he looks lithe and tall. He’s wearing a hoodie that has New York University emblazoned on it, and his long fingers aren’t covered with gloves even though they look freezing cold.

Derek’s initial reaction to him is frustration, because who even keeps their hands bare in the middle of winter anyhow? But when he smiles gently at the elderly couple and greets them as though he’s known them forever, Derek knows he’s screwed.

“My name is Stiles, I’ll be your tour guide throughout the big city today. And before you ask, that’s a nickname. I chose it myself when I was a kid. My real name is such an inconvenience on you poor tourists, I figured I’d give you a break.” He gives a bright smile and leans over with one arm draping over the edge of the bus railing. This provides them with a clear view of Stiles’s neck, tightened back and his smile is so  _wide,_ eyes crinkled.

Cora breathes in deeply next to Derek, jabs him hard in the side. Derek shakes her arm off and settles away from her, but she’s doing the same to him anyhow. They end up completely on different sides of their row before their guide looks their way.

His eyes span over, and freeze on Derek. “We’ll be going— going over past Broadway first, then uh,” Stiles stumbles over his words, eyes shifting, but quickly recovers with a quiet cough. “Then we’ll take a ride through Central Park.” Stiles grins at the two of them, and gives a tiny little wave, and Derek starts because Stiles is looking at him like he’s familiar. Which is ridiculous, so Derek shakes it off and looks to the side of the bus.

The bus grumbles to a start and Stiles makes last calls for passengers to board. He accompanies this with wild gestures that make the tourists laugh. Cora actually giggles, and Derek barely holds himself back from glaring, but soon enough the bus starts moving and the tour starts.

Derek doesn’t expect to be as bored as he would have been, with Stiles guiding them. And he’s right, the guy talks a ton. He doesn’t let any time pass before pointing out a new landmark excitedly, like it’s the first time he’s ever seen it. “Oh, we’re already here! That, my friends, is the Broadway strip. Phantom of the Opera is this year’s show.” He whispers “what else is new” and when Derek actually lets out a chuckle at this, he gives him a huge grin.  Derek clears his throat awkwardly and takes a picture of the restaurants with his phone.

"Why are you even taking pictures?" Cora inquires, lifting a delicate eyebrow in his direction. "The tour guide keeps looking at you."

Derek glares and shushes her.  She elbows Derek again with her bony elbow and scoots closer. When Derek fixes her with a questioning stare, she tilts her shoulder over to reveal her shirt that had been revealed when she unzipped her jacket. The print across her chest reads  **he’s my brother** in a bold font.

Derek actually feels like chuckling, and his stomach oddly untwists itself. “Thought this trip all the way through, didn’t you?”

Cora shugs, some of her hair falling out of her ponytail. “I don’t need to be cockblocked by my brother.”

“I really didn’t need to know that,” Derek huffs, pinching at the bridge of his nose. When he lifts his head, Stiles is already meeting his gaze again, and there’s an electrifying moment where he can  _tell_ that Stiles is reading Cora’s shirt. And if Stiles’s face brightens, Derek’s conscience is ready to assert that it’s just his imagination.

-

The cold starts getting to Cora after an hour, so Derek begrudgingly gives up his own fingerless gloves, grumbling about her being irresponsible with her clothing choices. She sticks her tongue out and blows at her frozen fingers.

Stiles is walking down Derek’s aisle, and since he’s sitting on the outside, his arm almost brushes against Derek’s when he isn’t paying attention.

But then the bus hits a particularly solid bump in the road and with a surprised noise, Stiles falls sideways. It all happens so quickly that when Derek tries to save him, pawing at the air, he ends up getting a lapful of his tour guide. A rush of air is forced out of him when Stiles completely collapses into him and he can barely hear the screeching of the wheels over the roaring in his head. Stiles’s face is two inches from his and he’s utterly doe-eyed, still has a hold on Derek’s neck where he’d attempted to save himself.

"Oh my god," Cora breathes, sounding amused, and Derek thinks she takes a picture. His eyebrows hitch down in concern but it might turn out more hostile than he had intended because Stiles looks awfully flustered.

“I am  _so_ sorry there,” Stiles breathes out, no trace of his tour-guide voice left; it was probably picked up by the wind or the force of his fall.

Derek coughs, doesn’t know where to place his hands now that Stiles is settled and safe from collapsing to the ground without his assistance. “That’s okay,” is all he says, just as quiet, like it’s a secret.

Stiles chuckles and his lips shine when he licks them and steps off Derek’s lap finally, bending over to retrieve his hat.

It’s hard for Derek to admit to himself that he misses the warmth Stiles emanates, so he fixes the scarf around his neck instead. “You’d be surprised how often that happens,” Stiles jokes, and when the tourists laugh  good-humoredly, Stiles stage-whispers, “Not at all, actually. I’m quite graceful. So this guy over here is special, I guess.”

The sun is down now, so Derek can’t catch a trace of a blush, but he has a feeling that one is gracing Stiles’s face now. He gives Derek a hesitant smile and turns towards the front of the bus, laughing off the bus driver frantically apologizing for the rough ride.

Derek secretly finds it hilarious that when Stiles walks down the aisles now he grips onto the side bars, but he won’t tell anyone that, or that he notices it immediately.

-

One of the things that had attracted Derek to New York City in the first place was the way everything looked at night. The lights seemed to light up the entire  _world;_ they were enticing and Derek as a child would have appreciated the way it brought brightness to his life.

Derek doesn’t know why he hasn’t quite looked at the city from this perspective until now.

The families racing through the snow, heads down and feet buried in inches of slush, look pissed off and ready to go home. Vaguely, he can see employees inside of stores, mopping angrily at mud staining their shop floors. Every once in a while, a few teenagers throw snowballs their way and at random passerby who begin threatening them.

For some reason, Derek starts laughing quietly to himself.

Cora looks oddly at him when he turns away from the street, but is smiling nonetheless. “What?” he asks, smile turning into a reflexive grimace.

“You needed this,” Cora says, looking quite proud of herself. She gives him a hug, and ruffles his hair when Derek threatens to kill her. “Your threats mean nothing to me, big brother,” she sniffs.  

“They’re not quite threats,” Derek grumbles, fixing his hair, knowing that it’s a lost cause. Cora thankfully knows when to let something go (unlike Laura, which is why Derek thinks she might be his favorite too), and sits back in her seat, though she’s smirking nonetheless.  

They don’t pass anything quite exciting enough to peak Derek’s interest for the next half an hour, but soon they’re pulling up to a stop on the side of the road, and Derek is staring at the bright lights. The squeaking of the wheels is what finally catches his attention; he stares curiously at Cora, who is standing and zipping her jacket back up.

“Potty break,” she explains at his dazed expression. She raises an eyebrow and adds suggestively, “I would have thought you’d notice when the guide said that.” Derek thinks that his misery will never end and sighs. Cora chuckles. “C’mon, I wanted to check out the card shop. There should be funny stuff to send to my friends back home.”

“Friends?” Derek asks dryly, earning himself a smack upside the head.

Their group is ushered off of the bus, and Derek only goes to stretch his legs, but can’t help himself from assisting the old couple down the stairs so they don’t slip and fall. The old lady suggestively compliments him (he doesn’t quite understand her terminology, but he knows it’s something to do with his  _size,_ and the way her husband snips at her explains that she didn’t mean it in the polite old-lady way), so as they hobble away, he stands there kind of stunned as Cora laughs so hard that she can’t breathe.

“I’m leaving you here,” Derek scowls and turns away from her. When he looks back, though, to gauge Cora’s reaction, she’s left him anyways. He can see her far away heading towards the card shop with a hop to her step, her water-dampened hair flipping behind her. He considers calling after her, but she’s already long gone. He leans against the bus instead, hands in his pockets, watching as his breath soars into the air.

“Make sure you come back in ten minutes, everyone!” A voice shouts, right next to his ear, startling him. He tilts his head slightly to glare at Stiles, hopping on his toes with his hands cupped around his mouth. He’s standing on the steps of the bus, projecting his voice. Stiles does a little jump, hopping off of the last step with a stumbling grace, his neck craning as he looks over the crowd.

Stiles catches sight of him and approaches with a surprised smile. It’s really an amazig feat that Derek doesn’t retreat, and he stays where he is. Stiles says “Hey dude, I actually was just looking for you. Sorry about falling on you earlier.”

“It’s okay. You could have hurt yourself otherwise,” Derek answers, and it’s stupid that Stiles is apologizing to him for it. Stupid in the same way that Stiles’s eyelashes are fluttering when he  _blinks,_ and the way his fingers look long and delicate, but from the way he’d gripped Derek earlier tells him totally different. And now he’s thinking of gripping, and Stiles is looking bashful and blushing a deep shade of red, like he  _knows_ exactly what Derek is thinking. Maybe Derek’s problem is he thinks too much— it’s probably all over his face.

“Right.” Stiles scratches at his head. “Hey— uh, you’re from around here, aren’t you?”

“I am,” Derek answers. He wants to say that it’s weird that Stiles knows that, but he doesn’t want to ruin the conversation.

Stiles seems to catch sight of the invisible line he’s crossed without Derek telling him, and his eyes go impossibly wide. “It’s just that I thought I’d seen you before. It’s not like I was… I mean you could have been a tourist then, too. But it seemed unlikely, is all, so that’s why I asked,” he finishes, nose scrunched up.

“That’s okay,” is all Derek says. Stiles’s eyes are chocolate and warmth when he grins childishly, and Derek feels goosebumps pebbling up his arms. “My sister doesn’t live here, and doesn’t trust me to show her around.”

“Good thing you came to us, then,” Stiles says with a prideful swell of his chest. “ _I can show you the world,”_ he sings with a silly grin. Derek sighs and elbows Stiles when someone nudges past them.

For some reason that Derek doesn’t know, they’ve started walking along the street, following along with the flow of people. They pass children looking at store display windows and are cut off by a group of young men running down the street. They converge again  , and Stiles’s arm bumps against his.

Stiles at least looks like he has a purpose, though, wheras Derek is just following, as he approaches a street vendor and slips his wallet out. There are few people hovering around with various types of food, and a man stands behind the grill, flipping meat over. “Hey Isaac,” Stiles greets, and the vendor scowls at him, but has a fond expression at the same time. It’s a look Derek has perfected over time, so he knows that they must be friends. Or at least, he does his best to assume. “I want a beef shish kabob.”

“Let me buy you something,” Stiles offers, looking back at Derek. Derek shakes his head immediately, causing Stiles to frown. “Come on, it’s the least I can do.”

"For what?"

Stiles glares at him, like Derek is the one being difficult. “For assaulting you on the tour bus!”

"You didn’t  _assault_ me.”

"Debatable," Stiles says with a wave of his hand, but soon his expression morphs into a pleading one. "Please? I’d  _like_  to buy you something.”

Derek gapes like a fish, but schools his expression long enough to stare at the menu, and then say that he wants what Stiles is having, and tries to ignore Isaac watching him curiously behind the glass. Stiles has this pleased little smile on his face and Derek tries to focus on the bite of the cold and not the heat building in his abdomen.

"Aren’t these things not supposed to stop?" Derek asks, pointing to the tour bus.

“This wasn’t really a planned stop, no. But Scott” he lazily jerks his thumb back at the bus driver idling in the distance, cradling his own corn dog (it’s impossible to not look at Stiles’s hands for too long, though. He makes all New Yorkers look  _gorgeous,_ which is untrue and totally false advertisement) “forgot to go pee before we left. I love this place’s beef shish kabobs. They’re hella expensive but Isaac has a soft spot for me so I get discounts.”

Derek feels left out of the loop when Isaac laughs sarcastically, and really, it’s like he’s just as much of a tourist as Cora is. Isaac hands over their food and Derek tears a piece of his beef off of the stick, while Stiles picks off a chunk of his own. “‘Sn’t it good?” he asks, mouth still full. Derek must stare for too long, because Stiles blushes, and swallows.

Derek shakes his head and nods, hastily biting another piece off. “I’ve never actually seen this much of the city,” he says.

“Really?” Stiles looks genuinely interested. “There’s so much to see, I guess. That’s why I became a tour guide, I think. I find new shit all the time.”

Derek grunts. “That’s also why I’m here. My sister thinks I haven’t been around enough. I’ve lived here for years, and I haven’t even been in the Empire State Building.”

“But that’s history!” Stiles says, in a tone that screams  _blasphemy!_

“Sorry.”

Stiles sighs, and finishes his food. “Unbelievable.” He nudges Derek with an elbow and a cheeky smile when Derek scowls into his food. “Hey, if you ever need a tour there, let me know.”

“You don’t have to,” Derek says immediately, kicking himself when Stiles’s smile shrinks.

“Right. Just offering.” He grins wider then, with more teeth. “Anyways, we should probably get heading back.”

“Okay,” Derek answers, tossing his stick away. Stiles smacks Scott on the back of the head to get his attention away from a girl conversing with him. She has dark brown hair, and kind eyes, and Scott looks absolutely smitten with her.

“Let’s get going,” Stiles says. “We’re losing daylight,” he jokes, and both Scott and the girl grin, and Derek takes this time to step back on the bus.

-

“So what went on with the cute tour guide while I was gone?” Cora asks, huffing as she sits down. It completely dashes his hope that she hadn’t seen them talking. She tries to look disinterested, but Derek knows fully well that’s she’s hanging on her seat, so he decides he won’t throw her the bone.

“Nothing.”

She grins anyways, just because of that. “You like him.”

“How could I like him?” Derek tries to ignore the phantom twisting in his gut. “He talks a lot.” He glares at Stiles, shouting into his microphone excitedly. “He doesn’t even need that microphone, his mouth is big enough without it.”

“You’re focused on his mouth, then, huh?”

“Shut up,” Derek says with a frown, but it fades a little when Stiles fixes him with a warm look, and waves his hand a little.

-

At the end of the tour, Stiles passes out sheets for them to review how the trip was, telling them to mention their dashing tour guide in there if they please. Derek rolls his eyes and circles a ten out of ten.

Stiles is chatting excitedly with Scott when Derek steps off the bus at the end of the night, so he lets Cora depart first. Stiles keeps glancing over at them, and though Derek can’t hear them because of the city’s noises around him, he assumes they’re talking about him. Scott looks a little pissed off and excited at the same time, and glares in Derek’s direction, and Derek hunches his shoulders and gets off of the bus so he doesn’t overstay his welcome.

Cora hails a cab for herself while Derek insists they can walk with a sour look, so she says she’ll meet him at the diner before slamming the door shut on him. Derek growls in his throat and sets off on his walk.

“Hey, hey Derek!” A voice shouts over the crowd suddenly, and Derek spins. Stiles is racing past  a biker, and he hops over the curb, halting breathlessly before him.

“Yeah?” Derek shoves his hands in his pockets.

Stiles blows his breath out and it cascades through the air. His eyes skate frantically over Derek’s face, then he hops on his toes. “Was it you?”

Derek looks at him. “Was what me?”

“Someone wrote on the review notes,” Stiles begins, body visibly deflating. He scratches at his neck. “Someone put a phone number down.”

“Oh,” Derek says. He must think that Derek was pulling his leg. “It wasn’t me. So you don’t have to worry.”

“Right,” Stiles says, and grunts in frustration behind Derek’s back as he tries to leave. “But see,” he continues, and Derek stops. “I was  _hoping_  it’d be yours, and if it wasn’t, I wanted to get it anyways.”

Stiles, surrounded by Christmas lights, nervously hopping on his toes, biting at his lips, is something that makes something bud in Derek’s stomach. “Yeah?” he asks, and Stiles nods furiously.  

“ _Yeah,_ dude, _”_ he breathes out. “If you want. I know I’m not—” he makes a frustrated grunt and motions at himself. Derek doesn’t really know what he means, because even his  _hands_  are distracting.

“You’re stupid,” Derek says, because he’s really at a loss for words. He holds a hand out, expectantly, and shakes it.

Stiles stares at it. “Do you want me to… hold it?”

“The  _phone,_ idiot,” Derek says, to avoid the fact that maybe he wants to do  _both._

“Oh my god, okay,” Stiles says, frantically pawing at his pocket and unlocking his phone, handing it over. Derek types his information in, and presses save. He maybe checks it a few hundred times to make sure it’s all correct, before he gives it back. “Hey, thanks,” Stiles says when he checks, like it means that much to him that it’s there.

“You’re welcome.”

“I’ll text you,” Stiles says, smiling confidently.

“Sure.” Derek rubs his hands together to warm them. They part finally, and Derek sets on his walk to the restaurant where Cora will be meeting him.

“You’re unbelievable,” he tells her.

She crosses her legs and folds her hands together, brown hair cascading everywhere. “It actually worked, didn’t it?”

Derek doesn’t answer her. A half an hour later, Stiles sends him a picture of the Empire State Building, lit up with lights, and he smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh PS the title is from "New York State of Mind" by Billy Joel :)))


End file.
